On September 26th, the Kanto Block Tea Exhibit and Auction was held in Iruma city.
What is this auction exactly? Well first, tea producers within the Kanto block (all prefectures north of Shizuoka) submit their finest products. Then these products are judged and ranked on their appearance, flavor, etc. After that (on 9/26 this year), an auction is held featuring all of the top-ranked tea products. This auction is not open to the public. However, Yokota-san was kind enough to invite me:
âIf I say youâre part of the Yokota Tea Farm staff, theyâll let you in. Haruna-san, would you be interested in going as part of your study?â
I responded, âYes, Iâd love to go!â and he took me along!
There were a bunch of tea leaves inside a wooden box at the entranceâŠwhat do you think itâs for? Well, since part of checking the tea involves touching it with your fingers, youâre supposed to wash your hands in this tea before entering so that the smell of your hands doesnât rub off onto the tea you touch later! Everyone was putting their hands in the box and washing them with tea leaves. How luxurious.
Inside the event area, everyone had already begun to inspect the various teas.
Since most of these tea-makers know each other, you could hear greetings and friendly conversations being exchanged all around.
According to Yokota-san, âSome of these people you only meet here, and some you meet everywhere, so at these auctions you do a lot of greeting and exchanging information. But in reality, theyâre also trying to sniff out whoâs going to bid how much for which teas.â
While looking at his own tea on display, Yokota-san remarked, âShizuoka fukamushi-cha is yellower than Sayama fukamushi-cha. I tried to make ours yellower to match that, but when you put it next to the Shizuoka tea you can see itâs still greener.â
For the Regular Green Tea Finish Tea Division, Sayama tea (from Saitama prefecture) occupied 19 of the top 20 places! This was a complete contrast to Shizuokaâs dominance of the fukamushi-cha division. There were a few Shizuoka teas in the top places, but according to a certain tea-maker, âThe people who make these kinds of teas have tried to make them as green as possible after learning that the auction would be held in Saitama. The really passionate tea-makers will go beyond that to find out who the judges will be and what their tastes are. These auctions are held in a lot of different prefectures, but there are some people who will show up no matter how far away it is.â
This is the FGTC Division. FGTC stands for Fresh Green Tea Competition. The FGTC Division is a place where a group of young (up to 40 years old) tea-makers from Saitama compete against each other in techniques for cultivating and producing Sayama tea. So only Saitama teas are exhibited in this division. Morita Tea Farmâs Morita-sanâs son will be competing next year.
The auction began at 10:00 AM, and by noon the deadlines for bidding are already over for all divisions. Then at 3:00 PM, the results of the bidding are announced. The highest bid this time was „188,800 ($1,900 USD) for 1kg, and the lowest bid was „1,200 ($12 USD).
Since it is an auction, the product must be sold to whoever made the highest bid, no matter what the price turns out to be. Even if the only bid you get is a really low one, you canât say âI donât want to sell it this cheap.â
Because of this, tea producers use a âguaranteed minimum bidâ method. For example, theyâll say to a bidder, âI donât want to sell this tea for less than „5,000. Would you be willing to bid „5,000 on it? If someone bids higher, thatâs great; if the bid goes to you, Iâll buy the product back afterwards.â
This was my first time to a tea auction, and I donât think Iâll have many chances to see so many teas (over 300 types!) on display at one time again. Yokota-san, thank you very much for giving me this wonderful opportunity!
Yokota Tea Garden
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